Nicanor Aráoz (Buenos Aires, 1981) produces objects, installations and sculptures using as reference images from comics, imagery from the Internet and romantic mythologies taken from gothic art. In his works, procedures involving the making of a surrealistic object, such as the assembly of dissimilar elements and a oneiric component, take on frantic forms resembling nightmares where pleasure and pain seem to merge. Aráoz uses materials as if they were to expiate sadistic sensations and takes them to the utmost limits of expressivity and torsion. In narrative scenes, he mixes plaster monsters, amorphous masses of resin, trainers, neon lights and biscuits with embalmed cats, mice and birds, thus shaping a world of emotional psychedelics with visual references to the domestic environment of an adolescent.

Jonas Staal (1981) is artist and founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012-ongoing) and the campaign New Unions (2016-ongoing). Staal’s work includes interventions in public space, exhibitions, theater plays, publications, and lectures, focusing on the relationship between art, democracy, and propaganda. Recent solo exhibitions include Art of the Stateless State (Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2015), New World Academy (BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht-Centraal Museum, Utrecht, 2015) and After Europe (State of Concept, Athens, 2016). His projects have been exhibited widely, among others at the 7th Berlin Biennial (2012), the 31st São Paulo Biennale (2014), and the Oslo Architecture Triennial (2016). Recent books by Staal include Nosso Lar, Brasília (Jap Sam Books, 2014) and Stateless Democracy (BAK, 2015). The artist is a regular contributor to e-flux journal and completed his research Propaganda Art in the 21st Century at the PhDArts program of the University of Leiden.

A friend had taken me for various walks through the city, to try to make me aquainted with its complex urban infrastructure. In various corners we encountered evangelical and spiritist centers, the latter of which struck me due to posters and imaginery of a futuristic society, which I imagined to be a depiction of some form of “heaven.” How was it, I wondered, that the left had so much difficultly imagining a post-capitalist society, whereas the spiritists seemed to have no hesitancy to use three-dimensional modelling to represent their ideal, eternal and utopian looking world?

I began researching the background to these images, and quickly came across the work of psychographer Chico de Xavier, that was a messenger on behalf of the dead throughout his life: writing countless books on behalf of wise spirits and diseased poets. Most of the stories he transcribed related to Nosso Lar, or “Our Home”: a hyper-modernist regeneration colony in the afterlife, where spirits either prepare for their re-incarnation on earth, or to move further into new levels of spiritual awakening.

I had not yet made the comparison between Nosso Lar and the Brazilian modernists, such as Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. But when I was preparing for a travel to Brasília, and a psychographed map of Xavier depicting Nosso Lar accidentally was laying next to a map of Brasília, the resemblance struck me. The engineered nature of both cities seemed nearly identical. Had there been any connection between the spiritist movement around Xavier and the Brazilian modernists? Did these two city models – one in the beyond, one in our present-day reality – have anything to do with one another? Did they match size, function, ideology?…

The answer was neither yes or no. The models had much to do with one another, too much almost. But just not enough to say that they were the same. They form parallel cities, and parallel histories, hovering over and nearby one another – touching at unexpected moments. And just as there is not a single narrative that could account for the endless cities within the city of São Paulo, I realized that I had to develop an approach that could narrate the history of both, without ever becoming the same.”

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Nosso Lar, Brasília was developed between 2012-13, co-produced by Capacete, the 31stSão Paulo Biennial, and Extra City Antwerp. The resulting installation was presented from 2014 onwards, and the book of the same title published by Capacete and Jap Sam Books, Heijningen, the Netherlands.

Brazilian artist, art-educator and cultural stirrer, graduate in dance, mainly interested in articulating different forms and conditions to develop sensible material and experience.

“CAPACETE was the second of a series of six residencies I participated in 2012/2013, in which I was developing a gestural, behavioral, choreographic and conceptual research I was calling “Escavações” (Excavations). Once I was able to have a lot of proper time to arrange my activities along all of those residencies, and having CAPACETE’s context in between of two others where I was and would be pushed hard into practical experimentation, I decided to make Rio (a very familiar place for me, because I lived there for 10 years) a place/context to be more quiet and still, reading more, listening more, paying attention and so on. I remember the moments of the days I enjoyed the most were like being at the kitchen with other artists, listening to their desires, concerns, struggles and efforts, cooking and talking about nothing precise, chit-chatting with the woman that used to clean the common spaces of the apartment (I’m sorry I don’t remember the names of much of those companions, but for me what mattered were their presences), and also when someone was being visited by outsiders; it was great having time to give time to the presence of the other. Maybe that’s the clearer remembrances (maybe more as feelings) I have from the time at CAPACETE, but nonetheless, despite blurred and apparently artistically meaningless, those experiences brought me thoughts and motivations that were deeply important for the sequels of my excavations.”

“In many ways Capacete was an opening chapter to a series of visits to the country. I have been coming back every winter since, developing different projects around themes of nature and corruption in the north east region of Brazil. I did a solo show titled ‘Condominium’ at Akershus Kunstsenter in Norway in 2015 where I exhibited a project looking at massive holiday apartment complexes, built for Norwegians, close to Natal that came to a halt due to financial crisis and a money laundring scandal. At the moment I’m working on an artist book that connects images from trips to Brazil. It will be a lyrical documentary of a region, where contemporary ruins destroyed by financial crisis and corruption are combined with images of landscapes and of hallucinatory nature. It will also include a CD of sound recordings.”

Jimmy Robert (born 1975) works in a range of media—including photography, sculpture, film, video, and collaborative performance—gently breaking down divisions between two and three dimensions, image and object. Robert’s work is guided by an interest in the body and the poetic potential of ephemeral materials such as paper and tape. Creating form through gesture, he draws inspiration from artists such as Yvonne Rainer and Yoko Ono. His exploration of moving bodies, crumpling paper, and repetitive gestures, in works that feature actions such as a hand tearing tape from skin or fingers rubbing a text, has come to define him as an artist of touching.

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“These images document places where I did for example a bit of research towards the theater of the oppressed and its remnants in Rio and in particular in this psychiatric institute in Jurujuba as well as an exhibition of Art Brut following the legacy of Doctor Nise da silveira at the Instituto Moreira salles where by chance I discovered the work Ana Cristina Cesar.

There is also a still of the performance I did at the teatro Ipanema with the group of artists/community around Capacete at the time. Finally, a production still of the video installation Vanishing point showed at the 8th Berlin Biennial where I filmed on super 8 the amazing drag performer Erika Vogue doing a dazzling performance of Bate cabelo throughout the modernist edificio Capanema. We also went to Ilha Grange as a group which was a simply unforgettable moment, here you see Helmut with a Penguin which had somehow lost its way to the south.”

Daniele Marx lives and works in Amsterdam. Her work engages time based practices mainly in the following areas: conceptual art, socially engaged practices and collaborative projects. This practices is presented from various media: publications, events, other formats. From 2008-2010 she holds an Master of Fine Art at AKV St Joost in the Netherlands. Since 2003 she cooperates with the Fine Art UFRGS at extension project Lost in the Space – Ways of Thinking the Sculpture coordinated by Dr. Maria Ivone dos Santos and developed the Project Meio, co-authored with the artist Marcos Sari both in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

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In 2012 she holds a residency project at Capacete, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Nowadays she works for game entertainment industry and develops her practice in collaboration with artists and institutions. In 2016 she participated in the research group from Erik Hagoort on the project Using Usership. During the experience of four months living and working in Capacete Rio de Janeiro (2012), I tried to establish a dialogue with artists, who attended the workshop Residência + AULA (1), and also with locals. The conversations was about the concept of ‘Tropics’ and the ‘current reality of the country’. In that period Brazil was in a exponential moment of economic and social success according the international media. Having my cultural background as Brazilian living abroad from years I felt the urgency to start the project Diálogo Absurdo nos Trópicos. During the residence a series of events were also held and ideas for future developments. (1) Artists participants workshop Diálogo Absurdo nos Trópicos Residência + AULA: Lucas Sargentelli, Marianna Olinger, Felipe Abdala, Clara Lee Lundberg, Márcia Ferran and Anderson Ramalho.

“My time in CAPACETE was a period of wandering around Rio de Janeiro looking for its most interesting sounds in order to take a group of twelve on a silent excursion. The unusual aims of my visits gave me a lot of interesting insights and new friends with whom I have a strong connection till this date. As food was important for my collective experience – the silent day would end in a talkative dinner at CAPACETE’s then-new headquarters – I had never cooked so much and in such large portions. Those dinner parties were unforgettable and I think they represent what CAPACETE does best, which is to gather people around art, oral culture, activism, food, and alternative ways of organizing the many different layers of life. The end of my residency was not exactly easy to get over, as I was already feeling home and am now openly nostalgic about it.”

“I am a freelancer as an Editor and Curator, I have my own publishing house, with Laura Daviña (Edições Aurora) and I am studying a master degree at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid. “How to live together”, “how to waste my time”, “how to deal with contradictions”? Capacete`s residency gave me some experiences that helps me in these big insoluble questions. Also gave me excelente memories and people, and coexistence with Helmut´s generosity and his special way to live and create community.”

Felipe Meres was born in Petrópolis, Brazil in 1988 and currently lives and works in New York. Solo exhibitions include The Telomeric Cut at Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2017) and Fsision at Company Gallery, NY (2016). His work has been shown in venues such as Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, FL (2016); Shulamit Nazarian, LA (2016) and Lisa Cooley, NY (2016). He was an artist in residency at the ArtCenter/South Florida, FL (2016); SÍM, Reykjavik, Iceland (2012) and Escola de Verão, Capacete, Rio de Janeiro (2012). He holds an MFA from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College, NY and is currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at The New School, NY. He is the recipient of the 2016 Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation Grants & Commissions Award and of the 10th Tom of Finland Foundation Emerging Artist Grand Prize.

Beto Shwafatyis an artist and researcher based in Brazil. He has been involved with collective, curatorial, and spatial practices since the early 2000s, and as a result, he develops a research-based practice on spaces, histories and visualities, that connects formally and conceptually political, social and cultural issues that are converging to the field of art.

“Capacete is like a studio without walls. It is a multibrain outside of our heads. A network. It is also like a community. It is like being lost, and find the path (maybe not the one you were looking). It is never the same as before. It is food. It is exchanges in micro scale which you will carry with you. It is risk and failures, challenges and construction. Capacete is a house, walls and roof. It is friendship, a multitude of diversities, creating fluxes contexts. It is.”

Pedro Victor Brandão (*1985, Rio de Janeiro). He is author and artist. He works with photography, performance and social practices. He has a degree in Photography at Universidade Estácio de Sá, (UNESA, Rio de Janeiro, 2007-2009) and has attended to liberal study courses at Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (Rio de Janeiro, 2005-2010). Since 2003, he has been developing works about new meanings for the technical image today, researching iconoclasm, oblivion, and the relation between truth and image regarding different political landscapes. His works have been shown in many institutions in Brazil and abroad, including Museu de Arte Moderna (Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), Casa França-Brasil (Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), SESC Vila Mariana (São Paulo – Brazil), Portas Vilaseca Galeria (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Niklas Schechinger Fine Art (Hamburg – Germany). He was artist-in-residence at Lastro Centroamérica (Ciudad do Panama, Panama, 2015); ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, (Berlin, Germany – 2014); Halfmannshof, (Gelsenkirchen, Germany – 2013); Terra UNA (Liberdade – Minas Gerais, Brazil – 2013); and Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, France – 2012). From 2007 to 2012 he collaborated with different collectives (Laboratório Tupinagô, OPAVIVARÁ!, Epistomancia and Agência Transitiva). His work is represented by Portas Vilaseca Galeria (Rio de Janeiro) and Sé (São Paulo). He lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.

Choreographer and performance artist born in Rio de Janeiro (BR) and based in Gießen (DE).

“It might be too obvious to start a text like this, but my experience in Capacete was very inspiring, not only because it offered me the opportunity to receive many inputs from different artists, thinkers and researchers in the field of arts, but especially due to the relaxed and affective environment of sharing practices proposed by Helmut, Daniel and Amilcar. I have nice memories from the warm days we spent together during the summer university 2012 (?). And though i don’t have a continuous contact with the artists i met there, once in a while, when we meet in different art contexts is always a pleasure to catch up and remember things together.”

Currently living in State College, Pennsylvania on a Scholarship at Penn State University, doing a Master in Sculpture.

“In 2011, I was invited to Capacete’s Summer Program in Rio amid a vibrant community of artists and thinkers. This experience nurtured my practice and the work I would develop years after and in the present moment. For a short period, a community was created, ideas where exchanged actively and collectively. I was very lucky to be part of this School.​”

“I founded ‘de Vluchtmaat’ 3 years ago. I recently started coordinating the programming at the Vluchtmaat. De Vluchtmaat offers a temporary home to 40 refugees in limbo and rents out workingspaces to artists, designers, non-profit organizations and small entrepeneurs. The rent they pay covers all monthly fixed costs like gas, water and electricity. So, we created a shelter for 40 people, that otherwise would be on the street, that doesn’t cost anything to neither the owner of the building or the municipality. Besides de Vluchtmaat functions as a cultural hub in which collaborations between renters and residents are happening. http://vluchtmaat.nl/

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Next to that I recently restarted my individual artistic practice again after leaving ‘Here to Support’. Here to Support is a non-profit organization I founded in 2013. Here to Support engages in projects initiated by a group of artists and theorists in close cooperation with refugees in limbo. Together they aim to shape partnerships based on equality within a society characterized by fundamental inequalities. Here to Support does not focus on providing humanitarian assistance, but it strives for emancipation of undocumented migrants. To make them seen, heard and essentially, to put them in charge of their own lives again. Here to Support initiates educational and cultural projects that enable refugees in limbo to express and develop themselves. http://heretosupport.nl/ Two times I have been at Capacete for a residency period to do research and produce work. This was in 2010 and 2012. Later on I visited Capacete again because I fell in love with Rio de Janeiro and with Johnson Beauge, to whom I am now married. My stay in Rio was life changing in so many aspects, that I don’t even know where to start. It was magical but painful, relaxed but intense, inspiring but hard to get things done. It was it all. A place to go back to. Again and again.”